“Do what?”

“Come without ejaculating.”

He leaned back and grinned at her. “You noticed that, huh? It takes a lot of concentration. And Kegel exercises.”

“Same kind I do so I can do this?” She squeezed him inside her even harder than before and he shuddered.

“Yeah, that Kegel guy was a genius. But can we not talk about this right now?”

“Sorry,” she murmured.

Fifteen minutes until the park closes. Please make sure you’ve collected all of your belongings before you leave, a loud speaker announced.

“Damn it. They’ll be kicking us out soon.” He shouldn’t have held back the last time.

Jessica’s hands moved to his chest, her fingers trailing down over his skin. “Just press me up against the wall and fuck me like an animal, Sed. I know you want to.”

Actually, it hadn’t entered his thoughts, but that would do the trick quickly. “You don’t mind?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Would I have mentioned it if I minded?”

God, he loved this woman. And not only because she was his sexual equal. But right now? Mostly for that reason. He walked closer to the wall and pinned her back to its textured surface.

“Let me know if I hurt you and I’ll try to settle down.”

She nodded, the trust in her gaze absolute. She wrapped her legs around his waist loosely, to give him plenty of room to move and keep her hips tilted for easy penetration.

He gave lust free rein.

He thrust into her. She took all of him, wriggling her hips and squeezing his cock inside her to increase his pleasure. His perfect goddess. Jessica. He found a rapid tempo. Thrusting deep, withdrawing. The intensity built with each stroke. His need to possess her, to claim her, brand her, drove him to madness.

“Mine,” he growled against her throat, sucking her flesh into his mouth to leave his mark upon her skin.

“Yes, Sed. Yours. Take it.”

He fucked her harder. He wanted her to feel him. Know him. Be one with him. Be all his. Only his.

“Jessica,” he groaned. Already close to exploding inside her, he had to know, “Do you feel me?”

“Yes. I feel you. Do you feel me?”

“Yes. It’s mine. Tell me it’s mine.”

“It’s ours.”

“Ours,” he sighed in agreement and shuddered as he lost himself and spilled his seed inside her, the pleasure intense, the emotions overwhelming. “Take it, Jessica,” he cried, still coming, still filling her with more of himself. “Take it all. Take everything I am.”

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him against her. She kissed his temple tenderly. “I love you, Sed.” She rubbed her nose against his cheek. “I love you.”

He gasped and took a deep shuddering breath, his chest full to bursting, his vision blurred with tears. “I love you,” he whispered around the lump in his throat and hugged her closer. He struggled to contain his tears, but could not stop them from falling. Hopefully, she’d think those were droplets of pool water dripping from his jaw and striking her shoulder.

Chapter 36

Sed pulled the tour bus door open and hefted a suitcase up the stairs. Before he could set it down, Brian shoved him into the partition that separated the driver’s area from the main cabin.

“You son-of-a-bitch, you always think you know what’s best and just do whatever the hell you want without any consideration—”

Trey grabbed Brian around the waist and pulled him out of Sed’s face. “Leave Sed alone,” he said. “I owe him my life.”

“Trey!” Brian hugged him with both arms. Their little bromance disturbed Sed sometimes, especially now that Brian was married. “How do you feel?”

“How do I look like I feel?” Trey struggled from Brian’s stranglehold of an embrace.

Brian looked him over. “You look… great.”

Jessica wandered up the stairs, carrying the laptop case and her mammoth-sized purse. “Yeah, he does.”

Myrna pushed her husband aside and hugged Trey. “We missed you, sweetie. I’ll go make you a cherry pie. How does that sound?”

Trey rolled his eyes in bliss. “Wonderful. Sed tried to starve me to death last night.”

“You do look thin,” Myrna said disapprovingly. She went to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and started pulling out ingredients.

“We thought you’d call for take out,” Jessica said, looking guilty.

Sed felt no guilt for abandoning Trey for a night. Just happiness. Jessica loved him. Nothing else mattered.

Jessica glanced up from the final draft of Myrna’s journal article. Sed handed his cell phone to her. “It’s your mother.”

Jessica’s heart skipped a beat. Her mother had been forbidden to call unless it was an emergency. Jessica grabbed the phone. “Mother? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“I thought you’d like to know that you got a letter from the University today. From the dean’s office.”

“Did you open it?”

“After the chewing out you gave me last time, of course I opened it.”

Jessica winced. “Well?”

Something inside her wanted the letter to refuse her the chance to win her scholarship back. She just wasn’t sure she even wanted to be a lawyer anymore. Mostly because she’d have to be away from Sed again, but also because failure did not sit well with her and the thought of being at the same institution as Dean Taylor made her skin crawl.

“Your probation stands,” her mother said, “but if you pass that class you failed—”

“I didn’t fail it, Mother.”

“If you get an A when you retake it, you’ll get to keep your scholarship.”

Jessica didn’t know if she should be elated or disappointed. Well, she knew she should be elated, but now she had a tough decision to make. She looked up at Sed who stood watching her as anxiously as Sed was capable of being. Could she leave him again? Even temporarily?

“I thought you’d be happy,” Mother said.

“I am.” She wasn’t. “Does it say what I have to do?”

“In addition to your regular third-year classes, you have to take the failed class, too.”

“Anything else?”

“You have to pay for the extra class out of your own pocket. It’s not covered by your scholarship. You don’t expect me to foot the bill, do you? You know I can’t afford—”

“No, Mother. Don’t worry about it. I can come up with some money. Thanks for calling and letting me know.”

“Is your boyfriend going to pay for it?”

Jessica scowled. “No. What do you think I’ve been doing all summer? I’ve been working.”

“If you’d just marry that rich rock star guy, you’d never have to work. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about all this going to school nonsense.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. How many times had they had this conversation? A thousand times? A million? “Good-bye, Mother.”

“Take care,” she said brightly.

Jessica ended the call and handed the phone to Sed.

He hugged her. “I’m sorry you didn’t get your scholarship back.”

“Oh, I got it back. I just have to pay for that class I have to retake.”

“You got it back?” Sed tugged her back by her shoulders to look down at her face. “Why aren’t you dancing in celebration?”

She shrugged. The semester started in two weeks and her time with Sed would come to an end. Myrna’s project was ending too, and she’d be heading back to Kansas City for the start of fall semester. There was no reason for Jessica to stay. No reason, except her feelings for Sed.

“I love you,” she whispered around the knot in her throat.

He grinned, both dimples in full view. “I love you.”

She kissed him deeply, wanting him to make her forget all her worries for a couple of hours and immerse herself in him. He took her hand and led her to the back bedroom, incapable of disappointing her.

Chapter 37

Jessica worried her lip as she and Myrna waited in the deserted dressing room for the guys to take the stage in Dallas, Texas. Myrna was no longer collecting data, so they’d watched every performance this week. Tomorrow, Myrna would catch a plane back to Kansas City, and the next day… Jessica didn’t want to think about it.